No nation ancient or modern ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing, or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.
John P. Zenger
[Read the article linked to. The context for this quote is not the least bit frivolous. His case established freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and jury nullification in this country. And Zenger died in 1746—30 years before the Declaration of Independence!—Joe]
They say that they are law abiding citizens but there’s no way of knowing that. There’s no accountability for this group.
Karen Arntzen
Of the California Brady Campaign.
November 27, 2010
Restaurant Is Stage For Debate Over Open Carry Law
[Via The Madman Raves.
I really don’t get her point.
Accountability? The open carry people she is talking about is just as accountable as she is. And just like with her when someone meets her on the street there is no way of knowing if she is law abiding.
Does she think that if the people open carrying were wearing a uniform and a badge that would make them more law abiding or accountable?
It’s as if I understand all the words she is using but I can’t make sense of her sentence.
The Madman Raves interprets it as “I believe she just called all open carry practitioners ‘criminals’.” —Joe]
The Jew Alfred Flatow was found to be in possession of one revolver with twenty-two rounds of ammunition, two pocket pistols, one dagger, and thirty one knuckledusters. Arms in the hands of Jews are a danger to public safety.
Police First Sergeant Colisle
Via an arrest report from Berlin, October 4, 1938.
He was arrested based on the above while attempting to comply with an order to turn in all firearms to the government. His firearm was legally owned and registered. It wasn’t until November 11, 1938 that the Weapons Control Act of 1938 went into effect making it illegal for Jews to own firearms. Hence, he was arrested while complying with the law at the time.
After his arrest he was turned over to the Gestapo and transported to Terezin in October of 1942. He died of starvation in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in December 1942.
Journal on Firearms & Public Policy Volume 21, Fall 2009, “Arms in the Hands of Jews Are a Danger to Public Safety”: Nazism, Firearm Registration, and the Night of the Broken Glass, pages 28 & 29.
[I am reminded of this suggestion:
The lessons of the 20th Century:
Lesson No. 1:
If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and take you someplace you don’t want to go because of who you are or what you think– kill him. If you can, kill the politician who sent them. You will likely die anyway, and you will be saving someone else the same fate. For it is a universal truth that the intended victims always far outnumber the tyrant’s executioners. Any nation which practices this lesson will quickly run out of executioners and tyrants, or they will run out of it.
Lesson No. 2:
If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and confiscate your firearms– kill him. The disarmament of law-abiding citizens is the required precursor to genocide.
Lesson No. 3:
If a bureaucrat tells you that he must know if you have a firearm so he can put your name on a list for the common good, or wants to issue you an identity card so that you may be more easily identified– tell him to go to hell. Registration of people and firearms is the required precursor to the tyranny which permits genocide. Bureaucrats cannot send soldiers to doors that aren’t on their list.
Lesson No. 4
Believe actions, not words. Tyrants are consummate liars. Just because a tyrant is “democratically elected” doesn’t mean that he believes in democracy. Reference Adolf Hitler, 1932. And just because a would-be tyrant mouths words of reverence to law and justice, or takes a solemn oath to uphold a constitution, doesn’t mean he believes such concepts apply to him. Reference Bill Clinton, among others. The language of the lie is just another tool of killers. A sign saying “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Makes You Free) posted above an execution camp gate doesn’t mean that anybody gets out of there alive, and a room labeled “Showers” doesn’t necessarily make you clean. Bill Clinton notwithstanding, the meaning of “is” is plain when such perverted language gets you killed. While all tyrants are liars, it is true that not all political liars are would-be tyrants– but they bear close watching. And keep your rifle handy.
–Joe]
I thought to myself: “Brady Bunch lady, are you serious? You’re trying to cover his sign? What, are you five years old?”
The Madman
November 29, 2010
Anti-Gunners Are Childish
[Hmmm… mental maturity of five? That sounds about right for a Brady Campaign supporter.—Joe]
Securing the Washington Monument from terrorism has turned out to be a surprisingly difficult job. The concrete fence around the building protects it from attacking vehicles, but there’s no visually appealing way to house the airport-level security mechanisms the National Park Service has decided are a must for visitors. It is considering several options, but I think we should close the monument entirely. Let it stand, empty and inaccessible, as a monument to our fears.
An empty Washington Monument would serve as a constant reminder to those on Capitol Hill that they are afraid of the terrorists and what they could do. They’re afraid that by speaking honestly about the impossibility of attaining absolute security or the inevitability of terrorism — or that some American ideals are worth maintaining even in the face of adversity — they will be branded as “soft on terror.” And they’re afraid that Americans would vote them out of office if another attack occurred. Perhaps they’re right, but what has happened to leaders who aren’t afraid? What has happened to “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”?
An empty Washington Monument would symbolize our lawmakers’ inability to take that kind of stand — and their inability to truly lead.
Bruce Schneier
December 2, 2010
Close the Washington Monument
[Alan also has a QOTD from Schneier.
A few years ago Barb and I visited the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. I was appalled at what we had to go through in order to get in. It was airplane security theater. What??? Do they think someone is going to hijack it and fly it into skyscraper?—Joe]
So the gun control advocates, 2/3rds evil, 1/3 stupid. I would say full evil except that there are some gun control advocates who are able to learn, so not all of the ignorance is willful. Still, evil must be opposed.
American Mercenary
December 1, 2010
Evil or Stupid?
[I’m not sure I agree with this. If you read the analysis you will find that, according to him it boils it down to willful ignorance being evil.
I think before resolving this question one has to define evil. If it is defined as intentionally doing harm we will arrive at a different conclusion than if we were to agree that evil means the results are harmful and/or injurious regardless of intent.
But the end result is the same. Even if they have the best of intentions gun control advocates are harmful and must be opposed.
How we oppose the gun control advocate must be tailored to the advocate. Someone who obviously lies and misrepresents facts can be safely exposed as evil. But labeling the willful ignorance of someone with the best of intentions and perhaps the loss of an innocent loved one in their background as evil is probably going to do more damage than good.—Joe]
I guess when your cause has no roots in reality it makes it easier to change your mind ever thirty seconds.
Christopher Burg
November 30, 2010
Guns on Trains
[He is referring to Brady Campaign spokesmen changing their story to fit whatever they hope might get some traction with the public. The problem for them is none of their predictions of the streets running red with blood have come true. Virtually anything they say will be either immediately demonstrated to be false or suspect. How many members do they have? They said they had “about half a million”. The true numbers are about 50,000 if you count everyone who has ever donated to them. They say gun control laws increase public safety yet they also say, “I am not arguing here that higher rates of gun ownership cause higher rates of crime, violent crime, or homicide. Such causation is difficult to show because so many other factors bear on the incidence of crime.”
If they were to say the sky was blue people know it probably is completely overcast or when pressed on the issue the Brady Campaign will claim they meant that it was blue someplace else.—Joe]
Wisconsin will soon become the 49th state to endanger unarmed citizens with a gun crazy concealed carry law. While normal Wisconsinites prefer having no guns around as a way of ensuring a safe secure society, immature thugs and their guns will soon get their way via the party of bullying, the GOP.
…
While these paranoid wing nuts insist there’s nothing safer than a load [sic] gun in the hands of an angry anti-government whiner, the public has no choice but to fight back. Raise your voice, contact the police or business owner and tell them you feel threatened for you and your family.
John Peterson
November 28, 2010
Concealed Carry Killers. And these are only the ones we know about.
[Interesting. With those “great” Wisconsin gun laws how did this happen? It seems that a law against concealing firearms in a backpack and a law against firearms in a school didn’t stop a student from doing just that.
Don’t let the anti-gun people tell you that things would be worse if it weren’t for the restrictions on firearms. Remind them that in the years 1776 through 1990 there were seven school shooting incidents. But after the creation of “Gun-Free” zones in our schools in 1990 there were 78 incidents from 1990 through 2007. References here.
And where are all those people “endangered” by the concealed carry laws in the other 48 states? What is the violence crime rate in those states compared to the violent crime rate in the states that allow people to protect themselves with the best tools available?
Peterson is just another bigot on the wrong side of history.—Joe]
There are only two other states requiring the sale of confiscated weapons, Kentucky and Tennessee, both of which must have state governments almost as brainsick as Arizona’s. The NRA says why not sell these weapons to an authorized agent, and therein lies the problem. Gun show participants are authorized agents, and carry a loophole that would allow individual to individual weapons sales without background checks.
Jack E. Dunning
November 29, 2010
Arizona continues to lead the nation in putting more guns in the public’s hands
[This appears to be another case of someone lacking a thinking process. Not only does he have an error in his facts about gun shows but if you read the rest of his post you will discover he apparently believes there is a fixed supply of guns in the universe—he wants the police to destroy all confiscated firearms.
The only people that gain from destroying confiscated firearms are the people employed to do that and the gun manufactures. Yes, this anti-gun advocate is proposing a policy that benefits the gun manufactures by decreasing the supply of firearms in the marketplace. A decreased supply means more sales at a higher price for suppliers.
Sometimes I suspect they really are stupid. But if they were as stupid as they appear they couldn’t manage to string together the words into complete sentences. Nope, I think it has to be a mental defect.—Joe]
On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?
Thomas Jefferson
Notes on Virginia, 1782.
From here.
[Translating to a simpler form, “Just because we haven’t yet rebelled due to the government overstepping of the constitution in the past doesn’t mean that we won’t hold the government responsible for those infringements in the future.”—Joe]
The Second Amendment is not about hunting, it’s about an armed citizenry. That’s an unsettling concept for many people. For others, it’s a bedrock of security, constitutionally guaranteed.
Jon Agner
November 24, 2010
Guns and violence: McKelvey wrong on heritage, history
[Blacks walking around anywhere, anytime, without supervision instead of being slaves—that is an unsettling concept for many people. And it’s constitutionally guaranteed.
The problems is as minor restrictions on firearms ownership (or blacks/Jews/gays/whatever) increase the people least in need of restrictions will be affected the most and those that would have abused their freedoms will be affected the least. Hence minor restrictions cause more harm than good. Extensive restrictions are blatant infringements and while they might repress certain aspects of the original problem they create their own disastrous consequences.
And that is the basis of the conflict and why there cannot be a reasonable compromise. A society can choose freedom or suffer the alternative.—Joe]
Why did he marry his dead wife’s brother-in-law’s sister?
Daughter Xenia
November 25, 2010
[I wanted to answer, “Because there was a shortage of women, this is cattle country, and there were no sheep.” But there were too many relatives around listening in and I just said there was a shortage of women.
This came about because while at my brother’s place for Thanksgiving Xenia wanted to know how she was related to some guy that looked and acted kind of like a caricature of some inbred from West Virginia. It was complicated and we couldn’t help but amuse ourselves by giving her all the details of the two sisters marrying the two brothers from another family, the brother and sister marrying the sister and brother from another family (one was married in ‘45 and the other in ‘54), and the double cousins that lived in the same house. Even though she was drawing and labeling a graph she said her head was about to explode so we stopped before trying to put the lines on the tree to show that if you go back far enough her mother and I are cousins from…West Virginia.—Joe]
The Brady Center is about as effective and relevant as TSA which doesn’t say much for either organization. They also share the small-minded trait of getting nasty after having been called out on their goofs. The Brady Center certainly doesn’t provide a very good example of how adults should behave.
John Richardson
November 24, 2010
The Brady Center Doesn’t Act Like Adults
[They are in a desperate situation and desperate people do strange things.—Joe]
Much like the Antis warnings of shootouts over parking spaces, violent gunfights in movie theatres and general “Dodge City” mayhem, Florida’s crime rate continues to fall, just like the crime rate of the other 39 States who have legislated Shall Issue Concealed Carry. 1.6 million Floridians with CCW permits – crime rates fall.
You’d think, with all that money, that Paul Helmke would be able to buy a clue.
jdberger
November 17, 2010
Surprisingly, another one of Brady Campaign’s Warnings Falls Flat
[Maybe the problem is that Helmke and friends don’t have any money and can’t buy a clue. How else can you explain they are trying to revive dead issues?—Joe]
What you mean “us”, Kemosabe?
The day you’re standing there watching while some anonymous McDonald’s washout of a rent-a-cop is giving Michelle and the girls a full TSA probulation at Andrews AFB before y’all jet off to Martha’s Vineyard or Madrid is the day you will show a shred of leadership on this issue.
Until then, you can put a sock in it. Until the Presidential Junk gets a fondlin’, you’re just talking out your teleprompter.
You first, Barry; you first.
Tamara K.
November 21, 2010
Step up and show some leadership, Mr. President.
[Today is privacy day at The View From North Central Idaho. I received email about stuff that I just had to share. It will be up in a few minutes. Tamara sets the tone.—Joe]
Victimhood is cherished by the left. As one of their media of exchange it is like gold to them. It is one of the highest forms of existence, for which they all long, to which they all aspire, and which they would have us all attain at their hands as payment in kind.
Lyle Keeney
November 21, 2010
Comment to Quote of the day—Kurt Hofmann
[This is in regards to Virginia Tech gun control victim Colin Goddard representing the Brady Campaign.—Joe]
They might as well have put an arsonist in charge of the fire department.
Chris Cox
November 17, 2010
Executive director, NRA Institute for Legislative Action.
Cox is referring to the appointment of Andrew Traver as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE).
[This statement indicates Cox is operating on the assumption that the ATF serves as valid a purpose as the fire department. I’m not at all convinced it does and I’m not convinced Cox believes that either.
I think a better analogy would be putting a KKK Grand Wizard in charge of the Bureau of Minority Regulation.–Joe]
We are expected to accept Goddard as some kind of expert on our rights–as having some unique insight about how to legitimately infringe on that which shall not be infringed–not because of extensive study on his part of Constitutional law (his major was international studies), but because he was shot. When he argues that continuing the mandated defenselessness policies on college campuses is necessary for safety (despite how poorly that worked at VA Tech and elsewhere), we are similarly asked to accept that he is an “expert” on the subject, not because of his extensive training in self-defense (which I have never seen claimed), but again because he was shot. By that standard, I suppose everyone who survives a heart attack is now a cardiologist.
Kurt Hofmann
November 15, 2010
‘Gun control’ gets a new poster boy
[Oh! I like this game:
–Joe]
Just open your eyes and realize that gun shop and school don’t belong in the same sentence.
Michelle
November 17, 2010
West Allis Alderman Proposes Gun Store Ban
[How about opening your eyes and realize that the Bill of Rights never mentions schools but does say, “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”—Joe]
It’s time to quit worrying and learn to love the battle axe. History teaches us that if we don’t, someone else will.
Jack Donovan
Violence is Golden
[Via Linoge and Hsoi.
I find the phrase “battle axe” somewhat jarring. It should be “gun”. But perhaps Donovan intended it to be jarring. A battle axe is far more messy than a gun. A gun is civilized. Referring to a battle axe instead of a gun brings the point into sharper focus (puns intended).—Joe]